Reading and checking an answer

Also read the end of the answer: Charlie may point out its limits there, for example a synthesis based mostly on reviews.

Click “+”, to the right of the card, to see what Charlie searched. This detail is open during the search. It is collapsed when you reopen a session.

Read the summary first. For example, “4 channels · 290 → 25 kept” means: four ways of searching, 290 documents gathered, 25 kept to write the answer. These figures change with every question.

Depending on the question, you will also see “Recent articles”, “Author search”, “Article lookup” or “Full text”.

Under each channel, you read the query that was run and its number of results. A link such as “+2 variant(s)” unfolds the other wordings that were tried. When a small arrow follows the total, as in “152 documents total”, a click lists the documents, with a link to each one.

The last line gives the outcome, for example “Merged & reranked — 290 → 25 documents sent to writer”. The results are combined, then reranked by relevance. An article found by two channels counts only once. Only the retained documents are used to write the answer.

With PMC full text, the title becomes “Emerit Corpus Search · PMC full text” and the last line counts passages.

Each queried source has its own card: “Internet search”, “Library search” followed by the library name, “Patent search”.

The card says what was queried for this answer. The row of sources, under the input field, says what will be queried for the next question.

Read this line, under the card: it lists what Charlie ran for this answer. Tools are added to it as they go, before the first word of the text.

This line may be missing: some searches, such as an in-depth analysis of a library, do not appear in it. The search card remains the reference.

Hover over a citation to read what it cites, without leaving the answer.

A citation is written “Author et al., year”, such as “Zhao et al., 2021”.

A superscript, as in “Zhang et al., 2025^§1”, designates a specific passage of the article. The numbers follow reading order: §1 is the highest passage.

Without a superscript, the citation refers to the whole article, and hovering shows its abstract.

The text is shown in its original language. Compare it with the sentence in the answer: this is where an overly broad interpretation shows.

Hovering is only available once the writing is finished. While the answer is being written, a click already opens the source.

Click a citation to open its source to the right of the answer. What opens depends on the citation.

In this panel, view the answer's references, under “Cited sources” then “Other sources”. The latter were found without being cited in the text.

Each reference gives its number, the author and year, the source database, the title, and its DOI, PMID or PMCID links. The arrow on the right opens its record: retrieved text, number of citations, journal, article type.

The “Notes” tab, next to “Sources”, keeps your notes within reach: see Organizing your work.

Read the passage in the reader: it opens at the right page, with the cited text highlighted.

Also read what comes before and after: the context confirms or qualifies the sentence in the answer.

“Back to cited passage” takes you back to the highlight if you have scrolled through the document. The arrow at the top left, “References list”, goes back to the panel.

The reader also lets you change pages, zoom, search the document and download it. For a corpus article, “Save to a library” appears at the bottom.

To highlight and annotate yourself, see Reading and annotating PDFs.

Use the icons under each answer, from left to right.

Under the last answer, “Regenerate response” reruns your last question.

To export a session as RIS, CSV or PDF, use the “Actions” menu: see Organizing your work.